In simple and very real terms, I’m a car guy who peddles car wax. The story behind the story is that I was born into a family whose life was centered in
For the Luv of Paws Rescue and Sanctuary held a yard sale Friday and Saturday on Golden Gate Avenue in Kingman. Volunteers ran the sale to help raise money for
Coping with the COVID Crisis
One of the best gifts I received this past year was a face mask (because those were the kinds of presents that people gave in 2020). Printed on the front are the updated words of Protestant Reformer, Martin Luther: “Here I Stand…You Stand Over There.” As a Reformation scholar educating students at Wheaton College in the midst of a modern pandemic, it was the perfect gift, levity included.
We have all been finding different ways to cope with the shock and grief that came last year and continues with the global spread of COVID-19 as the doors to our churches, schools, and businesses were closed, and our gatherings moved online. The losses piled up and compounded. Delayed weddings. Cancelled graduations. Unattended funerals. Disrupted education. Lost jobs. Lives cut short, most importantly. Pictures of the deserted streets of Chicago began circulating looking like something out of a dystopian movie. Only the microscopic could halt the bustle of the
Perhaps the easiest way of making a town’s acquaintance is to ascertain how the people in it work, how they love, and how they die.
That’s how Albert Camus, the French philosopher and author, introduces the port town of Oran early on in his novel
The Plague. I found myself reading the novel and discussing it with students this fall at Wheaton College. In fact, it’s the college’s Core Book for the year, which means that the whole campus is reading, reflecting upon, and discussing it as an act of communal learning during this season of Advent and throughout the year.